


Origins

by dinosaurdragon



Series: Missing Moments from TWotS [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5341703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurdragon/pseuds/dinosaurdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, Clan Sabrae lost two hunters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CelticxPanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticxPanda/gifts).



> takes place at the very start of The Blight, at the beginning of chapter one--slightly before it and through the starting sequence.

Tamlen and Theron had been gone too long. Mheganni forced herself not to pace as she waited by the Statues of Fen’Harel. It was probably nothing. Tamlen got curious sometimes. Even Theron, quiet and reasonable as he was, couldn’t always keep their friend on track. He’d probably just seen a flock of pretty birds and gotten distracted. They’d be back any minute now.

Twenty minutes passed. It had been an hour since they were supposed to come back and meet her for a proper hunt. Her heart sank, and her stomach clenched. Something was wrong, she finally admitted to herself. Even Tamlen was never this late. Mheganni spun on her heel and headed back into the center camp. Ashalle should know, and maybe the Keeper would let Merrill help look for the hunters. They couldn’t be far.

Keeper Marethari smiled as Mheganni approached. “Good afternoon, Mheganni,” she greeted, and Mheganni managed a half-hearted return of the phrase. “How may I help you, da’len?”

Mheganni shifted her weight uneasily. “Keeper,” she said, “Tamlen and Theron have not returned. They were supposed to meet me by the statues of Fen’Harel an hour ago. I’m worried that something’s happened.”

“That’s not like them,” Merrill said, joining them by the Keeper’s aravel. “Well, Tamlen, maybe, but Theron wouldn’t do that.”

Marethari pursed her lips. “It is unusual, but that does not mean they’ve run into trouble.”

“What if some shemlen found them?” Mheganni pressed. “The other day we heard voices by the far stream. Shem voices. Maybe they got too close. Please, Keeper. Let me go look for them.”

“I’ll go with her,” Merrill offered immediately. “It’s dangerous to go alone, but together we would be fine.”

“I appreciate your concern, da’len, but I do—”

“Keeper!” It was Fenarel. He came running like the Blight was on his heels, and Mheganni was instantly on edge. “Keeper, you must come quickly—there’s a shem at the camp and he has Theron. Theron looks bad, Keeper.”

Marethari asked for no more information. She strode off the way that Fenarel had come, Merrill close after. Fenarel began to follow, but Mheganni caught his arm. “What about Tamlen?” she demanded.

Fenarel huffed and pulled Mheganni to walk with him. “I don’t know. Ir abelas, Mheganni. The shem has another elf, too, in the same state as Theron, but I don’t recognize them.”

Fear stopped Mheganni in place for a few short, shallow breaths. No—not Tamlen, he wouldn’t just leave her—he was late sometimes, but he always showed up. And so she started running, as fast as her legs would allow, across the camp. She passed the Keeper and ignored any calls of her name, deaf to them. Maybe Fenarel was wrong. Theron wouldn’t leave Tamlen behind. Maybe it was just the light—

But when Mheganni found the shem, one elf slung over each shoulder, she knew the second wasn’t her Tamlen. Tamlen was taller and had been wearing armor—not these confused, ragged bits of cloth. Both elves looked horribly sick, and she stumbled back even as the shem warned her away. “They need help,” the shem implored. “Please, where is your Keeper?”

“I am here, Duncan,” Marethari answered, all but appearing beside Mheganni. She gestured the shem— _Duncan_ —into the camp. He wore the armor of a Grey Warden, Mheganni noticed. She wondered, in a small part of her mind, what that meant. Why a Grey Warden was here, so far into the Brecilian Forest. It couldn’t be good. _Tamlen._

Duncan continued to carry the elves until he reached the infirmary aravel. There, Mheganni watched as Fenarel and Merrill helped to settle them gently inside among the furs. Duncan spoke quietly to the Keeper, almost too quietly for Mheganni to hear, but she strained to listen for any hint of Tamlen.

“I found them outside some ruins. They both have vallaslin, so I brought them here immediately. The boy’s bow is here, but I saw no weapons on the girl,” he said. There was a pause as Marethari nodded, and then Duncan sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know how it happened, and I am sorry to say this, but they seem to have the Blight.”

Mheganni could hold herself back no longer, those words breaking the last of her resolve. “Where is Tamlen?”

“Mheganni, please!” Marethari scolded.

“Tamlen?” Duncan repeated.

Mheganni stepped closer. “He was with Theron. They—they were scouting. They were supposed to come back to get me so we could start a hunt. Did you see him?”

From the sympathetic look on Duncan’s face, Mheganni knew what the answer would be. But before she could get it, Merrill interrupted. “Keeper,” she called, peeking out of the aravel. “We need your help. My magic’s not enough.”

After that, the Warden and Marethari disappeared inside the aravel, tending to their patients. Only after a small break was anything done for Tamlen: a group of older hunters was sent out in search. Mheganni was expressly forbidden from going along. Apparently she was too distraught and the search might be too dangerous. She took small solace in the fact that neither Merrill nor Fenarel were allowed to leave, either. But at least Merrill could help in the aravel. Mheganni had been ushered out when she tried to help, despite her skill with healing herbs.

So she sat outside the aravel and waited. Her sister, Ellana, tried to convince her to wait by the fire like the rest of the clan, but to no avail. The most Ellana could do was make sure she ate as the hours passed and still no word came from the search party or inside the aravel. She sharpened her arrows while she waited, to give her hands something to do, and quietly vowed death on any shemlen who had the gall to hurt her—to hurt Tamlen.

Eventually, Marethari and Duncan left the aravel. The shem said something more to the Keeper before disappearing back into the forest. _Dread Wolf take you,_ she thought, even as she prayed for him to find Tamlen. The Keeper said nothing until Duncan was gone, and only then did she address Mheganni. “It has taken all my power to save Theron’s life this day,” she announced, and sighed. “He should awaken soon. The girl was sicker, but Merrill is with her. I sincerely hope Tamlen did not encounter whatever caused this.”

“The shem Warden said it was the Blight,” Mheganni said.

“Yes.” Marethari met Mheganni’s eyes. “That he did.”

“What does that mean, Keeper?”

“It means we are lucky a Warden is the one who found Theron.” After those ominous words, Marethari refused to say more on the matter. Mheganni tried not to be angry, but was mostly unsuccessful. She stomped away, upset and a little ashamed.

An hour later, Theron awoke, but Mheganni didn’t greet him until he found her. His boots came into her vision, and she blinked up at him. He didn’t smile, and neither did she. There were no words, no smiles that could make the situation better. Tamlen was gone. She could feel it in the air, in the way the shem had stared with such sorrow at her.

When Theron kneeled in front of her, she gave in to the tears that pressed against the backs of her eyes. They streamed down her face, hot and unsteady, and a broken sob followed soon after. Arms wrapped around her shoulders; her own grasped instinctively around Theron’s body, holding him close. She hid her face in his shoulder, and he pressed his to her hair. Tamlen was gone. The third part of their triad—her… her almost-bond—was gone. It was nearly a physical pain, a crushing weight on her heart, a vice around her neck.

“I’ll find him,” Theron promised. “Somehow.”

It fell flat, sounded like little more than the expected platitudes. It didn’t help, but still… But still. Perhaps it was good to hear him at least try. They held each other for a while, simply taking comfort in the knowledge that they still had each other. At least all was not lost.

Of course, this could not last forever. Merrill collected Theron soon; the Keeper wanted them to find Duncan once more. Mheganni tried to go with, but Marethari forbade it still. As if she’d be a liability. As if she was so desperate to find Tamlen that she would do something stupid—except, if she were honest? She might.

So she stayed, arms wrapped around her knees, and tried not to cry again.

It didn’t take Theron long. He was back soon enough that Mheganni almost wondered if he’d left at all. He spoke with Duncan and Marethari, never meeting Mheganni’s gaze, as Merrill went to check on the other elf in the aravel. Soon, she called to the Keeper. “He’s awake! And a boy, actually…”

Mheganni squeezed her eyes tightly and counted to ten. She didn’t want to meet this stranger who had come back in Tamlen’s place. She didn’t know what she’d do, what she’d say, and she didn’t want to embarrass her clan by her anger.

So instead, she watched Theron speak with Duncan and the Keeper, watched from a distance as the new elf emerged from the aravel like a confused child. He was short, she saw, and wearing new clothes—they looked like Keeper’s robes to her, though she’d never seen Marethari wear these. Something the boy said surprised Theron, and that set Mheganni’s teeth on edge. This boy, whoever he was… She didn’t think his presence was normal.

While Master Ilen made a new staff for their guest (or whatever he was), Theron came to speak with her. Mheganni frowned in the direction their visitor had gone. “Do you know who he is?” she asked, turning to her friend.

“No,” he answered, arms crossed. “Only that he is a mage, and that he thinks his name is Vir’era.”

“Thinks?” She glanced to Vir’era, who stood awkwardly near Ilen’s worktable.

“He seems to have forgotten much. He doesn’t know his clan, either, and claims he was… scrying.” Theron pursed his lips, brow furrowed. The stark black of his vallaslin (that of Falon’Din, soul-brother to her vallaslin-patron, Dirthamen) seemed to etch extra years onto his face.

“I see,” she said. Maybe it was an accident, then. Maybe he had seen whatever was happening to Tamlen and Theron and come to help. He was Dalish, after all. “Is the Keeper going to let him stay? We have the space…”

Theron flinched, making Mheganni’s heart skip a beat. She waited for him to speak—she was good at waiting. Especially for Theron, her own soul-brother. (That was why they chose partner-gods for their vallaslin, really.) It took less than a minute for him to break. A new record.

“No, he’s not staying,” Theron said, very slowly, each word stretching on like molasses. “And… and neither can I.”

She whirled on him, dirt digging into her knees. “No!”

“Ir abelas, lethallan…” He looked about to cry. _Good,_ the vicious part of her thought.

“You can’t leave!” she shouted. Hahren Paivel broke off from telling the clan’s children about the Grey Wardens to stare in their direction. “I can’t lose you both!”

“Mheganni, please,” Theron whispered, though he did not ask her to calm down. He knew she wouldn’t. Knew she couldn’t. “I don’t _want_ to go, but I have to. I… I’m sick, Mheganni. And the Keeper says only the Grey Wardens can… can fix it.” He actually did start crying then; small tears slipped down his cheeks, silent and somber.

She sobbed in response and grabbed him by the arms. “Then take me with you! I’ll be a Grey Warden, too, I don’t care! Just don’t leave me!”

“No, I can’t—Mheganni, you _can’t_. You have to stay. For Ellana and your family and Merrill.” Theron stared her down even through his tears. “Please, they need you. You can’t leave the clan.”

His words punched her in the gut, left her breathless with pain and despair, but she knew he was right. Creators curse it all, but he was always right. He’d always been the level-headed one. “I hate this.”

“So do I.” He pressed their foreheads together. “I’ll… I’ll find you again when I can, okay? Dirthavara.”

“You better.” They sat together a while more, but soon it was time for Theron to leave. He pulled back slowly and squeezed Mheganni’s hands in his own.

“Dareth shiral, lethallin,” he murmured.

“May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent,” she returned.

And he left. She sang the mourning song for Tamlen with the rest of the clan, and hoped desperately that it would not also be a mourning song for Theron.

The pain in her gut only grew as Merrill turned to blood magic and the clan turned against their First. It killed something in Mheganni as she lost her three closest friends so quickly—to death, to war, to desperation.

And she could do nothing about any of it except hope.

_Creators, let it be made right._

**Author's Note:**

> so mheganni's gonna be showing up again eventually. call this a trial run for her character. a little backstory for her before we jump off the deep end. she won't appear in twots until kirkwall, though. some time yet...
> 
> elvish translations:  
>  _da'len_ \- endearment for someone significantly younger than the speaker; usually a child or young adult  
>  _shem/shemlen_ \- human  
>  _ir abelas_ \- I'm sorry  
>  _lethallan/lethallin_ \- endearment used among clansmen mostly, a sign of kinship. 'lethallan' is feminine; 'lethallin' is masculine.  
>  _dirthavara_ \- i promise **(this is a guesstimation made by me and is not canon.)  
>  _dareth shiral_ \- safe journey


End file.
